Census Taker's Lament

In 1880 Omaha's notorious third ward included
the heart of the city's gambling and prostitution. The character
of the district created unique problems for federal census takers.
A representative of the Omaha Daily Bee on June 8, 1880,
reported the recent canvass of this section of the city "not
particularly famous as the abode of refinement and intelligence"
and discussed the difficulties faced by one census worker.

The Bee said: "The enumerator
told our reporter that he was much impeded by the deplorable
obtuseness of many people he had occasion to question. 'I have,'
said he, 'oftentimes much trouble in making them understand the
nature and necessity of a census. They are very suspicious, and
imagine that I am an informer of some kind, in the employ of
the police, or, at best, an agent of some sort. I meet with many
abusive people, and am frequently insulted and loaded with epithets
of no flattering nature. I am obliged to be on hand early in
the morning, and have much trouble in rousing some people from
their early slumbers, and you may imagine that they are in no
very pleasant humor when thus disturbed, and the door is slammed
in my face with a curse for being a peddler, disturbing decent
people at that hour of the day! Oftentimes I meet with people
who do not know the place of their nativity nor their ages.

"'Yes,' he replied in answer to an
inquiry of our reporter, 'there are in my district a number of
houses of questionable repute, and the inmates often try, in
various ways, to evade my questions, or answer me in an equivocal
manner but a reading of the penalty provided for those who refuse
to make correct statements generally brings them to time. Of
course it is to be presumed that even then many of their answers
will be mere fabrications, originating in their own imaginations.
Their occupations? They are all dressmakers."

"In answer to a question regarding
the mortality and general health of the ward, he said: 'During
the first three days I took between 400 and 500 names, and failed
to hear of a single case of death during the present year. I
found considerable dirt, but strange to say, no case of sickness.'"

The enumerator himself in a July 14 letter
to the Bee expressed his "relief and gratification"
that the 1880 census of Omaha was at last finished. "He
is led to exclaim in the same strain as did the young lady who
had finished her education, 'My duties are at last finished!
What a thankless and miserable job I have had! What an ordeal
I have just passed through! The only wonder is that I have lived
through it all and preserved my senses (census) and young appearance.'"